


The Deal

by Hisha



Category: Among Us (Video Game)
Genre: Can we call it canon divergence if there isn't much canon to begin with?, Canon is an empty sandbox and I'm bringing it more sand, Crewmates all have names, Enemies to Friends, Gen, Nonbinary Character, Some crewmates have genders, The only crewmate to 'die' is the one who gets taken over by the impostor, not all of them though, they still refer to each other by colours most of the time
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:40:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27457381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hisha/pseuds/Hisha
Summary: What if, instead of killing each other, crewmates and impostor made a deal?
Relationships: Crewmate & Crewmate (Among Us), Crewmate & Impostor (Among Us)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 45





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I originally planned on having each character talk in their colour for dialogue, but that might be a pain for colourblind readers or readers who use the default site skin and don't want to have to decipher yellow or cyan text on a white background. So I decided against it.

Most Mira employees never actually went to space. You couldn't send just anyone on a ship without proper training and preparation, after all.

The Larimar siblings had just recently completed said training to finally be sent on their first mission to Polus. The day was fast approaching. Before that though, they had to meet up with the rest of the crew they would be living with on the ship.

The first one to be present at the meeting was the new captain of the Skeld, a certain Joe Moutarde.

“But you can call me Yellow”, he added after introducing himself. “I don't think I need to explain this one, right?”

The siblings confirmed this was the case. As their aunt had explained to them before, it was a tradition for Mira's astronauts to refer to each other by colour.

Two more people arrived in the meeting room and introduced themselves as Green and Red.

“Might as well start with the colour nicknames now”, Green commented.

“Oh, I should tell you”, Yellow said. “My cousin Orange was supposed to go with us but she broke her leg yesterday so… they had to pick another biologist at the last minute.”

“Oh well”, Red chimed in, “as long as it's not Plum…”

“Well, hum…”

As if on cue, the door opened, revealing someone in purple who introduced themself as Plum.

“Call me by name”, they insisted.

Cyan and Blue, being new recruits, introduced themselves to Plum.

“More Larimars...” they sighed. “Y'all can't help recruiting your family members in every branch of the company, huh?”

“You do know you can refuse the mission if you don't like it, right?” Green pointed out.

“Believe me, the directors wouldn't send us on this mission if they weren't absolutely sure we could handle it”, Blue said.

“Ze is right”, Cyan chimed in. “Auntie wouldn't have agreed to send us if she thought we were at risk of-”

“Whatever makes you feel better about all the nepotism going on”, Plum interrupted.

“Could you not antagonise the others before we even get in the ship?” Yellow asked. “We're gonna have to live together for some time…”

“And you'll be glad I'm there to pick up the pieces after the newbies.”

“We'll see about that”, Green muttered.

Cyan and Blue exchanged a look. They could tell this was going to be a long journey…

You would think being sent on a space mission would be more exciting, but it had mostly been busy work. Even on a spaceship, chores needed to be done.

Right now though, Cyan was operating the Skeld's weapons, which she actually liked to do. She always had fun targeting and obliterating debris (most of which were trash from the ship itself). They did not explode like they would if there was air in space, yet she still found herself making explosion noises with her mouth while destroying targets.

This small joy was replaced with annoyance the moment Plum showed up in her peripheral vision.

“You missed one there”, they said, posting themself right behind her seat and putting their hands on the headrest.

“It wasn't anywhere near the ship”, Cyan sighed. “I know what I'm doing.”

She just wished they'd remove their hands from the headrest already.

“You should let the actual professionals do it.”

“I _am_ one and I'm better at shooting things than y-”

Something got dangerously close to the ship and Cyan had to shoot it at the very last moment. A piece of it hit the Skeld as the ship itself moved.

“...Was that a comet?” Plum asked. “Hum, I mean, see? You're not that good at-”

“You're distracting me!” Cyan fired back. “Why don't you go away so I can do my job properly?”

“I have to go check the impact point anyway. Someone's gotta clean up your mess.”

“That's YOUR mess and you know it!” Cyan shouted after Plum as they left to get ready for a spacewalk.

She wondered what would happen if she shot them while they were outside. Hum, no, no, they would be too close for the ship's weapons to even hit them anyway.

Long before Plum had gotten through the process of preparing their spacewalk, Cyan had already gone to the cafeteria.

Cyan's pet, a one-eyed light blue dog called Hamster, was patiently waiting for her next to its empty food bowl. Cyan went to pick up some dog food from storage then returned to the cafeteria to feed her pet. Her sibling showed up and offered to have lunch together. Red and Green soon joined as well, followed by Yellow.

Plum remained absent from anyone else's view for quite a while.

Of course, telling time in space the same way you would on a planet's surface did not make much sense. However, the Skeld still had its own clock that was supposed to follow the timezone HQ was in, for the crew's benefit. That was how the ship's medic, Red, knew that it was about midnight, and over a full day after the crew's departure from Polus, that Plum silently walked into the medbay and laid down onto one of the beds.

“Do you need help?” Red asked.

The other clutched their head with both hands and remained silent.

“Headache again, huh?” the medic guessed. “I'll need to synthesise more painkillers 'cause we're fresh out. Hold on.”

Red set to work immediately.

Plum having headaches was not unheard of. They had been living with this problem for quite a while. No-one ever really commented on it. Red was pretty sure it had been getting slightly more frequent lately, though.

When the medic went back to the other crewmate, the latter had already fallen asleep. Red put down the medicine and a glass of water next to them.

“I wish I could fall asleep that fast when I don't feel well”, Red whispered.

Plum must have been really exhausted. Well, they did have trouble sleeping sometimes. The others always wondered whether this contributed to their general attitude.

Red went on to do other tasks and let the other rest.

Early in the day on the ship's clock, Cyan and Blue were cleaning up the storage room when the alarm started blaring.

The siblings immediately abandoned everything to rush to the reactor, Hamster in tow. Fortunately, Green was already there, one hand already on one control panel and the other gesturing furiously to the others. Cyan ran to the other panel to press her hand against it and reset the machine. Red and Yellow arrived less than a second later, slightly out of breath but relieved to see someone else had already taken care of the emergency.

Green soon rejoined with the group, shaking their head.

“Plum is gonna be pissed”, they stated somberly.

“When are they not?” Blue retorted, brushing off some invisible dust off of zir arm.

This got a chuckle out of the others, though this was probably due to them needing to relieve some tension after what just happened.

“Speaking of”, Cyan said, “where are they? They should already be here lecturing us on how this shouldn't have happened or something…”

“Last I checked they were asleep in the medbay again”, Red told her. “It's not like them to sleep through an alarm like this though…”

“Cyan and I should probably finish what we started”, Blue said. “If they see the storage's still a mess… yeah.”

The siblings went back to storage and the others went back to their own tasks.

“What do you think happened?” Cyan asked. “That's the first time I've seen the reactor act out like that…”

“No idea”, Blue admitted. “We might never know.”

“I hope there isn't a bigger problem…”

A little while later, the emergency meeting alarm started blaring loudly throughout the entire ship.

Soon, everyone was standing around one table at the center of the cafeteria, including Plum.

“Listen”, Green, who had just called the meeting, said as they slammed their hand on the table. “I've been working on reactor maintenance a lot. I know this machine better than anybody here. What happened earlier is not normal.”

“Do you know how it happened?” Yellow asked.

“I checked again. There's no way this could have been by chance. Someone must have sabotaged it.”

“Are you implying there's a traitor among us?” Plum finally spoke.

“...I guess there has to be, huh?” Green replied somberly. “There's only us here…”

“But why?” Red chimed in. “To what end?”

“Ours, it seems”, Plum said flatly.

“Where were you during the emergency earlier?” Blue asked zir purple coworker.

“Me? I was in Medbay. Mars can confirm. Olive, since you know these machines very well, you… Well, you were there, right?”

Green nodded. Plum continued :

“You'd be the best suited to sabotage them, then.”

“I FIXED it! Why would I sabotage something only to immediately fix it?”

“To gain our trust.”

“I thought I already had it?”

“Infighting won't help us”, Cyan stated. “We can't be sure of anything right now. It could have been a fluke for all we know.”

“It definitely wasn't”, Green retorted.

“We don't have enough evidence to know who did it.”, Cyan reminded them. “Or why.”

“So what do we do?” Red asked. “Wait until the traitor strikes again?”

“Do we have a choice?” Plum said. “'Guess we'll have to, hum… keep an eye? Keep an eye on all the… On everything.”

This uncharacteristic hesitation made the others wonder whether the stress was getting to their coworker.

“The way I see it”, Red said, “it's either you or Green.”

“Me?!” Plum exclaimed, deeply offended. “I wasn't anywhere near the-”

“That's exactly why. Everyone was there, ready to help, except you.”

“I was-”

“We don't have enough proof”, Cyan interrupted. “We should go back to work. Surely we can keep things under control, right?”

The others agreed, stared at each other silently for a while, then slowly started backing away from the table, unsure of whether they should just leave now.

Eventually, Red, Yellow & Green left the room together, followed by Plum. Only the siblings and Hamster were left in the office now.

“So we both agree Plum is sus, right?” Blue said.

“They absolutely are”, zir sister agreed. “Also… yes they blamed Green but I was expecting them to go into full lecture mode too? Something's not right. We should keep an eye on them to get more proof or at least prevent them from doing anything shifty. With enough luck, even if they _are_ a traitor we can stall them until we reach HQ.”

Hamster started whining loudly to get the others' attention and ask for pets, which it received plenty of from both of them.

The siblings found their purple coworker walking down a corridor on their own.

“You shouldn't go alone when there might be a traitor among us”, Blue told them.

“We'll be safer if we group up!” zir sister added.

“Yes, yes, of course”, the other agreed. “I'll keep you company while you do tasks.”

“...And you do yours too, right?” Blue asked.

“Oh, I... I've finished mine for today. My list's empty.”

The siblings exchanged a brief, doubtful glance. Hamster sat next to its owner's leg and stared at the purple one, cocking its head to the side.

The siblings went from task to task while making sure their coworker stayed with them the whole time. Plum was being uncharacteristically quiet. Usually they would be going on about how everyone else was doing tasks wrong ; now however, they seemingly didn't have any single negative word to say. Their silence had been wished for many times by the others yet now that they had it, it felt really strange. Suspicious, even.

The three of them were entering Medbay when the O₂ alarm went off. They immediately rushed to fix the problem and ran into the rest of the crew on the way.

Plum reached the O₂ machine first and quickly reset it.

“What would you do without me?”, they said, their smile audible.

“Should we, like… have an emergency meeting about what just happened?” Captain Yellow asked.

“What for? We're already all here right now”, Green pointed out.

“That's fair. Where were you and Red when the alarm started?”

“We were taking a break in cafeteria”, Red replied.

“Alright. What about you three?” Yellow asked the rest.

“We were doing tasks in Medbay”, Blue said.

“So who could have sabotaged it then?” the captain wondered.

“I'm starting to wonder if there isn't an impostor after all and the ship's just faulty”, Plum said.

“Impostor?” Cyan repeated.

Hamster sat right next to her leg, seemingly waiting for something.

“Oh, right, we talked about a traitor, not an impostor”, the purple one remembered. “Hey, same difference.”

“Green?” Cyan asked the engineer. “Can the ship's systems be hacked remotely?”

“Yes, they could”, Green replied. “What are you thinking about?”

“Well… Not being anywhere near a particular machine when it goes awry does not count as an alibi then”, Cyan concluded.

The others nodded silently.

“Oh great”, Blue sighed. “We still don't know shit.”

“At least we'll be back to home base soon-ish”, Yellow said.

Later, Cyan was in her seat inspecting the weapon system again. There was nothing to shoot ; however Hamster was lying on her lap so she couldn't move without bothering the animal, which would be a crime. Her sibling was fixing suspiciously cut wires in the cafeteria nearby and Plum was standing a few steps behind Cyan, actually keeping their distance this time.

“Hey, Purple?” she called.

“Yes?” they replied.

They did not correct her. They just accepted the nickname without question or protest…

“Can you…” she hesitated, trying to come up with something on the spot. “Hum, can you bring me some water? I don't want to bother Hamster.”

As they left the room, Blue and Yellow arrived to escort them.

The gears were turning in Cyan's head. What happened to her crewmate? What did this mean? Should she tell the others? What would she even say? That she had a gut feeling that-

The lights went out, completely interrupting her train of thought. Hamster leapt to the floor, letting Cyan get up and run to fix the problem. On the way, she literally bumped into Plum in the dark.

“Where's Blue?” she immediately asked.

“Ze paired up with the captain to go fix the light”, they replied, sounding annoyed. “But since you're here I'll-”

The lights came back and Green entered the room.

…Did Plum just let out a frustrated sigh under their breath?

“Someone cut a bunch wires”, Green told the other two. “Not the lights ones. Well, those too but I fixed them already. The shields weren't working correctly either. Whoever's been sabotaging stuff really made a mess of the place while we were sleeping. It's a miracle the ship's still flying.”

Blue and Yellow arrived and the latter suggested everyone go to the cafeteria for lunch/emergency meeting.

Lunch was unusually quiet. Everyone was starring at each other and barely touching their food.

“Any of you heard what happened to my predecessor?” the captain asked, breaking the silence.

“I was told she died in an accident”, Red replied. “Then everyone at HQ just… stopped talking about her.”

“Same here”, Green chimed in.

“Never heard of her”, Blue and Cyan said.

Hamster laid down under the latter's seat but kept its ears up as if to listen to the conversation.

“Well, it was no accident”, Yellow stated. “When her crew came back to HQ, she and another crewmate were missing. When the survivors were interrogated, they all said that, somewhere on their way back, their captain had been replaced by an alien impostor that killed the other crewmate... So they threw her out the airlock.”

“That's… horrifying”, Blue whispered, like ze was too stunned to raise zir voice. “And Mira covered it up, didn't they?”

“Of course they did”, the captain continued. “And your aunt had to have been part of the cover-up, I'm afraid. Anyway… later it turned out one of the survivors held some grudge against their captain. They were fired and I don't know what happened to them after that.”

“They framed her to convince the others to kill her”, Plum said.

“It's possible”, Yellow replied.

“That's what I'm worried about”, the purple one admitted.

“Wait”, Cyan finally spoke up. “Is that why you're being nice now?”

“You all hate me. For all I know, any of you could use this whole impostor traitor thing as an excuse to get rid of me guilt-free.”

“Well if you're that worried then all you need to do is prove you're still you”, Red stated.

“...Wait-”

“I often see you in Medbay yet you haven't done a medscan since… I think it was before Polus, even!”, the medic continued. “Surely if you were an alien impostor it would detect that.”

“You'd just find another excuse to throw me out into space.”

“If you were still Plum you'd jump at the occasion to clear yourself!”, Cyan suddenly shouted, getting up from her seat and pointing at the possible impostor. “Who are you?!”

They got up as well and shouted back :

“See?! I knew you'd turn against me sooner or later!”

“Enough of this”, the captain decided. “Everyone grab them and take them to the scanner!”

Plum ran towards the nearest vent in the corner of the room, the rest of the crew after them ; Hamster got in front of Plum and made them trip and fall to the floor.

“Good girl!” Cyan praised her pet as she and the other crewmates grabbed the purple one.

“Get off me!” the latter yelled. “I'll kill you! I'll kill you all!”

The crew carried them to the Medbay and dropped them on the scanner. Red turned it on. It worked fine… for about half a second. The screen then filled with an error message.

“Oh come on…” Red muttered before trying again.

This time, the dreaded Blue Screen of Death appeared.

“You gotta be kidding me!” the medic cried out while turning the machine off and on again.

The third time, it bluescreened once more.

“Blue, get in the scanner”, Red ordered.

The others removed Plum from the platform while still holding onto them firmly. Blue got on as Red restarted the machine.

This time, the scanner worked just fine.

“Ok so it's not the machine then”, Green concluded, looking at the unknown entity wearing Plum's face. “It's you.”

“Red just managed to fix the thing, is all!” the other argued. “That doesn't prove anything!”

The crew tried to scan them one last time. Blue screen again.

“How many times will we have to do this?” Cyan asked. “Just give up the act already. I called you Purple earlier and you didn't even correct me. Now the scanner can't even handle you anymore. What are you?”

“...About to be ejected into space, I guess”, the impostor replied calmly.

They seemed almost relieved, like a weight had been lifted from them.

“That's always the risk, isn't it?” they continued.

“What did you do to our crewmate?” Red asked.

“...You don't want to know.”

“Are they still alive?” Yellow asked.

“Define 'alive'”, the impostor said.

“Did you, like… kill them or take control or something?” Cyan asked.

“Well… you could say it's a bit of both, I guess.”

“How long have you… been there?” the medic inquired. “I... I should have noticed something…”

“And is there any chance at all to get our crewmate back?” the captain added.

“Why would you want to though?” Blue chimed in. “They were an asshole.”

“Peri!” Cyan scolded zir.

“I've been there for… just long enough, and the person you knew is gone”, the alien explained. “Sorry. When are you going to kill me?”

“Are we gonna be fired by Mira if we do that?” Blue wondered.

“...I think I have an idea”, Yellow announced. “We don't want to be blamed for Real Plum's death, so we'll have to prove that this-” he pointed at the impostor, “is Not Plum.”

“So wait. You want to keep me alive long enough for your bosses to see I'm not one of you? Is that it?”

“I'm offering you a deal”, the captain told Not Plum. “We let you live until we arrive back at HQ and they can deal with you. I bet the scientists there would want to keep you alive too, at least for some time. But-”

He leaned over them, getting real close and staring right at them as he explained slowly :

“If you cause any harm to us or the ship again… We _will_ kill you and make it look like an accident. Understood?”

The impostor nodded.

“I'll… I'll take it”, they said. “I'll be a perfect crewmate!”

“So...” Green chimed in. “What should we call you then?”

“Well… I don't have- I guess Purple is fine. Fits better with the rest of the crew.”

“Alright”, the engineer said. “Now go repair all the things you've broken. I'll be watching.”


	2. Chapter 2

Soon enough, the Skeld was as good as new.

Purple had been very serious about being the perfect crewmate. They'd repaired all the cut wires and other damages they had caused, fed Hamster when Cyan was busy, and cleaned every single surface of the ship.

At some point, they surprised Blue by popping out of a vent in Electrical, a dirty rag in hand.

“How did you even fit in there?” Blue asked them.

“I'm a shapeshifter”, Purple replied matter-of-factly.

“Can I see?”

A giant mouth full of teeth formed in the middle of their body and smiled at the crewmate. The latter couldn't help but let a “wow” escape, not sure if ze should be impressed or scared. Probably both. Soon, the mouth disappeared again like it had never been there at all.

“So wait”, Blue realised, “if you can modify this body then you don't have to keep looking like…”

“True”, the alien agreed. “I'll decide on a new face later. Maybe. If I remember.”

“Anyway... are you done cleaning?”

“For now.”

“Good, good”, Blue said. “How about we grab some lunch together?”

“I'd like that.”

Red was going over all of late Plum's Medbay records. For the third time that day. Looking for… anything, really. Any sign of something the Skeld's medic could have missed.

Red didn't even hear Cyan and her dog approach.

“Have you left this room at all since the last meeting?” she asked the medic, who almost jumped in surprise.

“Huh?”

“You need to take a break”, she continued.

Hamster sat and looked up at the red crewmate expectantly.

“I... I will”, Red promised, bending over to distractedly pet the dog's head.

“Is this about…?”

“I'm the medic. You'd think I would have noticed a whole-ass alien life form taking over Plum…”

“You're not blaming yourself for this, are you?”

“...No”, Red lied, quickly standing up.

Cyan put a hand on her crewmate's shoulder.

“Not getting noticed until it's too late is kind of this species' whole deal. It's not your fault. How could you have known to check for that? Especially when everything looked normal?”

“Keeping the crew alive is my job so losing someone feels… You know, even if it's not directly my fault, it still feels like…”

“Do we even know when Purple… arrived?” Cyan asked. “They've been very vague about it.”

“They refuse to give a straight answer on this”, Red replied. “I don't even know how long the period from first contact to complete assimilation is. They could have come from any celestial body we've visited.”

Cyan removed her hand.

“Do you have a guess?” she asked.

“I'd rather be extra sure before I share theories.”

“Well. We can't bring Plum back and we can't solve the puzzle without all the pieces so… please go take a nap. You look like you need it.”

Had Red felt just slightly better, that last remark would have been met with some half-joking variation of “ _so you mean I look like shit?_ ” Now though, poor Doctor Mars was too physically and emotionally exhausted for this kind of quip.

Yes, a nap indeed sounded like a great idea right now. After all, the rest of the crew needed their medic to be ok and not completely exhausted.

“Hey, before I go take that nap… How are _you_ holding up, Cyan?”

“...It's weird”, she replied after a moment of hesitation. “It's like… You know, usually when someone you know dies you feel like they've left a person-shaped hole in your life. But here… I still see their face regularly and there's this part of my brain that doesn't… know what to do with any of this.”

“Hasn't fully registered yet, huh? Since they're both gone and not gone?”

“I guess, yeah. Now go take a nap.”

Red finally managed a small smile. Then, the medic walked to the nearest Medbay bed and lied down to show that this nap was indeed going to be taken.

“Rest well, Doc”, Cyan said with a small but friendly smile.

She stayed by Red's side for a moment to just to make sure.

“You sure keeping them was a good idea, captain?” Green asked.

“Do you want a honest answer?” Yellow asked back.

They were both looking at the security cameras' footage. There wasn't much going on.

“Yeah”, the engineer said, “but your asking that question makes me think you're not actually sure.”

“I really don't want to eject anyone into space, even if they… you know. But I'm still worried they might backstab us later.”

“Since being discovered they've been… way more helpful than Plum ever was, if I'm being honest. I just hope they stay that way and we don't lose any more crewmate.”

The captain nodded in agreement.

“I'll already have to answer for what happened to Plum on my watch”, he said. “If... if we lose the rest of the crew too because of my decision… Well. Let's hope it won't come to this. I don't want to think of the alternative right now.”

“Lunch, then?” Green suggested.

Yellow gladly accepted the offer.

In the cafeteria, the two of them met up with none other than Purple and Blue already sitting and eating lunch together.

Or rather, Purple was keeping open a giant mouth full of pointy teeth open in the middle of their chest while Blue was throwing pieces of food at them and watching them catch it all with a long thin tongue.

The captain wasn't sure how to feel about this.

“Having fun, I see”, Green commented.

Blue and Purple stopped. The latter closed their giant mouth and made it disappear completely.

“I didn't expect failure to be fun”, they said, “but unexpected things just happen sometimes.”

“Failure?” Blue repeated.

“I got discovered”, Purple explained. “I'm not supposed to get discovered. I'm supposed to… pretend, and be good at it. But there's something… freeing about not having to pretend anymore. It's nice.”

“Well I'm glad you appreciate it”, Yellow said.

And he meant it. Surely a happy alien must be a less dangerous one, right?

“I guess I should thank you?”

The alien's sentence had a slight hesitation to it, as though they still had a hard time believing they were still alive.

“...You don't have to”, the captain told them.

He didn't have the heart to remind them that the best case scenario for them once at HQ would be to get locked up in a lab for study. Possibly forever.

Wait, why did he care about the feelings of someone who, for all intents and purposes, killed one of his crew to wear their face as a mask?

“What should I do next, captain?” Purple asked. “I've already fixed and cleaned the ship.”

That was a good question. He could ask them to make dinner later, but should they be trusted with the crew's food?

“You could… go find Red and Cyan after lunch, see if they need anything?” he suggested instead, as he was out of ideas.

“Will do, captain!”

As they were saying that, Cyan entered the room and told everyone Red was taking a much needed nap.

“Then as your captain I'm ordering all of you to _not_ get sick or injured”, Yellow joked.

“Red did look exhausted”, Purple commented.

“You two should talk later”, Cyan told them. “The doc has questions.”

They nodded silently.

“Of course you didn't notice”, Purple told Red while sitting on one of the Medbay beds. “Not being noticed is the point.”

Red was standing near them with a tablet in hands, recording the conversation for archival purposes.

“Plum's headaches did get a bit more frequent. Is that anything?”

“Well… I just might have… faked it?”, the alien admitted.

“Excuse me?”

“I had to have Plum's problems to seem like the real one!” they explained. “Did I overdo it?”

“I've been giving you painkillers for nothing? Don't take medication you don't actually need! Especially when I have no idea how your biology works!”

“...Sorry.”

“Wait”, Red said. “So you _were_ already here before that.”

“Listen. Yes, knowing where I'm from would make you feel better, but… I can't just tell you.”

“You have no reason to still be keeping secrets unless…”

Red lowered the tablet and stared at a point slightly to the left of Purple, thinking.

“There _are_ others, aren't there?” Red concluded. “You don't want us to find them.”

“For the sake of both your people and mine, you better hope you don't.”

“And if we do?”

“We kill each other”, Purple stated. “That's how the game is supposed to go. Not everyone, from either species, would be willing to make a deal.”

“Game?” the medic repeated.

“Could you stop the recording? It's making me uncomfortable.”

Red hesitated for a moment before obliging the other.

“Is there anything you can tell me? At all?”

“I can do this”, Purple said.

They held out their hand. Soon, the fingers started fusing together and bending the opposite way of how they should. Eventually the small mass of flesh straightened up and formed a solid, spear-like point. Then, slowly, the point divided and turned back into a hand. The whole time, Red stared at it in complete silence, fascinated.

“I have even more questions.”

This made the alien laugh.

“Y'all are so impressed by basic shapeshifting”, they said. “It's adorable.”

“Well, we don't see it everyday”, the medic pointed out. “Not in the way you do it, anyway. We see all sorts of living things change as they grow. We see some of them go through metamorphosis and become something completely different. But you… you can actually control and _reverse_ it. Of course we're impressed! Not many creatures we know of do that.”

Purple nodded.

“Is there anything _we_ can do that's… weird or impressive to you?” Red asked.

“This spaceship.”

“Could you elaborate?”

The impostor adjusted their position and drummed their fingers onto the mattress under their palms. Red put the tablet back in a lab coat pocket.

“When we want to do something we can't do by ourselves we go assimilate a creature that can”, Purple explained. “If there's no host that can do the thing, then the thing is impossible and we leave it at that. But y'all... You just wouldn't accept that you couldn't travel through space without dying.” They stood up. “You built entire structures to make the impossible possible for you.” They walked to the nearest wall and patted it to illustrate their point. “You essentially created your own Host That Can Do The Thing. There's a lot to learn from this.”

“We're nothing if not determined.”

Purple kept their hand on the wall for a moment, seemingly deep in thought.

“You sure are, huh?” they said eventually. “Nothing can stop you. Nothing…”

Purple popped out of a vent in the cafeteria just in time for dinner. The rest of the crew was used to this by now so none of them batted an eye at this anymore. The big paper hat the impostor was now wearing was a new addition though.

“Wanna feel pretty today, huh?” Blue commented.

“I just like it”, the impostor shrugged.

“Suits you”, Cyan complimented them.

They thanked her and sat at the table. Purple was not allowed to touch other people's food (only their own and sometimes Hamster's), but the crewmates still let them sit with everyone. The alien wasn't sure whether they deserved even that.

They should be long dead by now. That's what is supposed to happen when you get caught ; however these people seemed determined to not play by the rules.

At first the Impostor had wondered whether the others were waiting for them to let their guard down before ejecting them. But that never happened. It had been long enough that Purple had somewhat gotten used to the idea that the crew would stay true to their captain's words and keep them alive.

They would be experimented on for sure, though. That was part of the deal, wasn't it?

Red had already examined them. Several times. No-one had managed to get the scanner to work on them, so the medic had had to find other ways.

Maybe the best thing to do after failing their mission would have been be to throw themself out the airlock, but they had promised to be a perfect crewmate and perfect crewmates have to stay on the ship.

They had accepted a mission they were never expected to come back from. They knew the risks and what they were expected to do. Then why had they been so relieved when the captain had offered them a way out? Why did they stay true to their word instead of betraying and killing everyone in their sleep as soon as they all got used to them? What did they have to lose?

The Skeld would arrive at the crewmates' home planet soon. Purple's mission was a complete failure ; they should feel bad about this.

They did not. Failure hadn't been so bad. So far, anyway…

When the crew got off of the dropship and onto the top level of Mira HQ, Ms.Larimar of the board of directors (also known by Blue & Cyan as Auntie) was there to welcome them.

“You've sent... a very strange message”, she said after the standards greetings. “Captain Moutarde, could you follow me downstairs for a moment?”

Yellow nodded, waved to his crew and walked off with Ms.Larimar.

“And now what?” Purple asked once they were out of sight.

“Guess we'll just have to wait”, Cyan replied.

“Our auntie and the other directors want to handle things discreetly I bet”, her sibling added.

After a while, they all sat in a circle on the floor of the launchpad. Some time after that, Purple moved to the center of the circle. Their torso divided in two, the upper part falling back behind them to reveal a gaping mouth full of sharp teeth. The crewmates took turns throwing pieces of energy bars and wrappers for the alien to catch with their tongue. They caught and ate everything indiscriminately while the others cheered.

Distracted as they all were, they didn't even notice anyone else approaching until they heard a voice call out to them :

“Hey is Joe still- WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!”

Purple closed their huge mouth and got back to their crewmate form immediately, letting a piece of wrapper fall onto them. An orange Mira employee sporting a sprout hat and a lab coat was now staring at them in utter confusion.

“That's, hum, a mungus!” Cyan blurted out before anyone else could reply.

“A- Really?” Blue commented. “That's all you could come up with?”

“I don't see you come up with a better word!”

The impostor picked their paper hat (that had fallen behind them) up, put it back on and said :

“Hi. I'm Purple. I... replaced… Plum.”

“...What's going on???” the orange one asked. “Also where's my cousin? The yellow one?”

The crew finally stood up.

“The captain went to talk with one of the directors about...” Green explained, gesturing to Purple.

“You're Yellow's cousin, right?” Cyan asked Orange. “The one who was supposed to come with us but broke a limb or something?”

“Yes. I've had time to recover since. So what's up with...”

“An unknown, shapeshifting alien lifeform is what's up”, Red explained. “I can show you my notes.”

“Please do.”

The crewmates were getting some well-deserved rest. Purple however was sitting in a lab while the captain's cousin was taking blood and saliva samples from them.

“Have you finished Red's notes?” they asked her once she was done collecting.

“I'm about halfway through”, she replied. “There's a lot of notes. There's also quite a few question marks in the first part... Looks like you're clinging onto some secrets still.”

“Gotta cling onto something.”

“I can't believe I missed out on this!” Orange exclaimed. “I should have been there for this discovery!”

She put the samples in appropriate containers.

“...Do you not realise what would have happened had you been there as the crew's biologist?” Purple asked. “I mean. Look what happened to the one who _was_ there.”

Orange paused. Her back was turned but they were pretty sure she was thinking about it deeply.

“Are you saying you got them while they were doing their job?” she eventually said, her back still turned.

“No, I'm saying I could have taken any of the crew. And it could have been you had you been there.”

She turned around to face them.

“Plum was the most likely to be in contact with any lifeforms found during the mission, though, weren't they?”

The door opened, revealing Captain Yellow himself.

“Sorry it took so long”, he apologised. “There's been... some debate.”

“They want to cover that up too, don't they?” Purple guessed.

“The directors debated for quite a while on whether to tell Plum's family”, the captain explained. “A couple wanted to keep their... death a secret and have you keep pretending to be them. A couple others were more like 'we can't let a potentially dangerous alien go out into the general population'...”

“The deal was to keep me here anyway”, the alien pointed out.

“It's not up to me anymore. But you're probably gonna stay here anyway.”

“What about Plum's family though?” the biologist asked.

“They're still deciding what they're gonna tell them exactly.”

The cousins kept talking. They hadn't seen each other for quite a while so Yellow stayed in the lab to be with Orange and fill her in on everything that happened. Meanwhile, she prepared a slide of Purple's blood to observe under a microscope.

The “mungus” started dozing off on their chair.

Orange looked at Red's notes again, then went back to the microscope and hummed.

“It's getting late”, Yellow eventually said. “You should go home.”

“So should you”, his cousin replied. “Go without me, I have to finish this...”

“Clementine, if you're gonna work extra hours, you should also ask for a raise.”

“Hum... The notes weren't exaggerating”, Orange thought aloud. “Fascinating...”

“Clementine?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, yeah, lemme clean this up...”


	3. Chapter 3

The next day, the crew of the Skeld and Orange went back to HQ to carry a small foldable bed into one elevator and to the lab, where Purple still was sleeping on a chair.

The alien woke up to Blue and Orange unfolding the bed and putting it in a corner of the room.

“Is that for me?” they asked. “Thanks.”

“Looks like you really need it”, Red commented. “How's your back?”

“Terrible”, Purple replied.

They stood up and winced.

“Hold on I need to rearrange a couple vertebrae real quick”, they said.

The others couldn't quite see that happen, but they all could swear that, listening closely, they could just hear the bones pop back into place.

“I got you something to eat”, Blue said, handing Purple a lunch bag.

They said thanks and then immediately opened their chest-mouth to swallow the bag whole.

“...Do they do that often?” Orange asked when she noticed no-one else even batted an eye.

The others all nodded.

“It's faster this way”, the alien stated.

Yellow excused himself to go see the directors again. The Larimar siblings decided to come with him, hoping their aunt might be more receptive to whatever they'd say.

Green left soon after, saying they needed to spend time with family right now.

Red and Orange started discussing the former's notes that the latter had now finished. Purple went to lie down on their new bed and listened in silence.

“You wrote several times the scanner didn't work on them”, Orange said. “Have you ever solved that?”

“No”, Red replied. “And it's not the Skeld's scanner itself : it works perfectly for everyone else. Have you tried with a scanner from here?”

“Not yet. Hey Purple?”

The latter sat up and waited expectantly.

“Come with me”, the biologist instructed, “I'll test the HQ medscans on you just in case.”

The alien got up and followed her out of the room.

“I don't think this is gonna work”, they said as the two of them were in the corridor.

“Mot likely not”, Orange admitted. “Maybe some day they'll make one that does.”

“If there's one thing I've learned from your species, it's that you always find a way eventually. It might take a day or hundreds of generations, but. You know.”

They got into an elevator. Orange started humming quietly to herself and kept doing so all the way to the nearest scanner.

“We looked for their family”, Ms.Larimar explained. “None of them has spoken to Plum in years.”

“I wonder why...” Blue said snarkily.

“Not now”, Yellow told zir.

“...So is there no-one waiting for them at all?” Cyan asked her aunt.

“Apparently not”, the latter replied. “They've cut contact with their family around the time they started working for us.”

“I feel bad for them...”, Cyan admitted.

“Tell me, captain”, Ms. Larimar said, turning to Yellow again, “how come none of you noticed your crewmate had been replaced at first?”

“Impostors know how to blend in. That's the whole point.”

“I think you should go talk to them directly”, Blue suggested. “And bring them a snack so they trust you a bit more.”

“...I'll keep that in mind”, zir aunt said.

“They're not gonna bite you or anything”, ze joked.

“You needing to specify this isn't all that reassuring.”

“That was a joke, auntie.”

“...Anyway. More and more of my colleagues are starting to think telling Plum's family might not be worth it.”

“You want to bury this too”, Yellow guessed. “Just like-”

“Moutarde, please”, Ms.Larimar interrupted. “Don't.”

“I think we _should_ talk about it”, Cyan said, “but maybe not here. You never know.”

Her aunt gave her a side glance but did not offer any comment.

“You mentioned how helpful your... unexpected passenger was”, she said to Yellow. “Would it be possible to hire...?”

“Go ask them”, he replied. “They've been willing to make deals before, maybe they'll do it again. They should be in Clementine's lab right now.”

When Ms.Larimar arrived at the right lab, all she found was Doctor Mars looking around.

The employee said hello then explained that Orange and Purple had just left.

“She wanted to see the medscan thing for herself”, Red told Larimar.

“The medscan thing?” she repeated.

“Medscan doesn't work on Purple at all. That's how we confirmed they were an impostor. The machine works fine for everyone else but bluescreens on Purple every single time. We don't know why.”

“That's... very strange indeed.”

The door opened and Orange & Purple entered the room.

“I'd never seen these scanners bluescreen befo- Oh hello Ms.Larimar!” the biologist said.

The impostor behind her waved.

“Good to see you”, the director said. “This is about your... new test subject though. I need to talk to it privately for a moment.”

“... _It_?” Clementine repeated.

“I don't really care what y'all call me”, Purple shrugged.

“Follow me”, Larimar told them.

She lead them to an empty meeting room a couple floors above. There was a large rectangular table in the center with chairs on all sides. The director went straight to the water cooler in the corner, filled two cups and put one of them on the table in front of one of the chairs.

“Please take a seat”, she told them.

They did as instructed.

“Oh, I almost forgot”, she said, fishing something from her pocket. “I was told you'd appreciate this.”

She handed them a chocolate bar.

“Thanks”, they said, taking and pocketing it. “I'll keep this one for later.”

“Be honest”, she said, setting her own cup of water down and sitting opposite to them. “Do you know if... if this is the first time we, hum... encountered your species?”

“You want to know whether Captain Brown really was one of us, don't you?” Purple guessed. “You did fire Pink over this... And the others too, right?”

“No, the others quit in solidarity. So do you know?”

“I think someone was sent? That's all I can tell you.”

The director fell silent.

“Where is he now?” Purple asked.

“Pink? In jail, of course. That's where murderers go. But if he did get rid of a threat... That's self-defense isn't it?”

She stared at the table for a moment.

“Are you here for some kind of invasion plan?” she asked suddenly.

“What? Of course not. Well, I wouldn't tell you if I was but. I'll be real with you : when I got onto the Skeld I didn't even expect to ever make it to this planet. The plan was to destroy the ship. That didn't happen. I have no more plan now.”

“We can offer you a new plan.”

“I'm listening.”

“You made us lose a valuable employee”, the director pointed out. “What can you offer to compensate for this?”

“Oh, so you're offering to hire me then”, Purple realised. “I have enough of my host's memories to pass for them. I could just do their job.”

“That would make all of this way easier.”

Larimar took a sip from her cup then set it back down in the exact same place as before.

“This way we could simply keep Plum's contract up”, she continued. “We'll need to make another, more discreet contract with you, though.”

“I'm guessing it'll have something to do with not harming anyone here.”

“Obviously. But it would also involve you not leaving our headquarters without heavy supervision. We can't afford to just let an alien lifeform outside. We do not know what the consequences would be.”

“I wasn't expecting to be let outside to be honest”, the alien said. “I guess this facility is my jail now.”

They downed their whole cup and kept the empty container in their hand.

“I'll get back to you with an actual contract to sign”, the director explained. “You will have to work under Plum's name for practical and legal reasons. Though I guess you could get a legal name change...”

“I think I will. Where do I start?”

“I will look it up for you”, Larimar promised.

She stood up, prompting Purple to do the same.

“Let's get you back to that lab for now”, she said.

“Did you _seriously_ label the samples as 'mungus'?” Red asked.

“It was the only species name I was given”, Orange replied. “No-one has any better idea so I guess they're a mungus now.”

“I think I'll just stick with 'impostor'.”

“Whatever.”

The biologist went back to her own notes on her tablet for a few seconds before looking back up at Mars again.

“Usually whoever discovers a new species gets to name it”, she said. “But the entire crew discovered them at once, right?”

“Yeah”, Mars confirmed. “I guess we'll have to all agree on something. For now... I need to go back home. See ya later.”

“See ya!”

Red left the room, leaving Orange alone in the lab.

She did not remain alone for very long though, as Ms.Larimar soon brought Purple back.

“I'm ready for some more testing”, said the latter.

Once the director had said goodbye and left the other two alone, the alien immediately got closer to Orange and whispered :

“I need your help.”

“What for?”

“I'm gonna be asked to do Plum's job. I have enough of their memories to pretend to do what they did but... it might not be perfect. I won't be as good at it as the original. You can help me... refresh those memories in a way. Just don't tell the higher ups about it.”

“Sure”, Clementine agreed. “I'll tutor you. Helping people out and getting to rant about biology to someone who actually listens are two of my favourite things!”

“Thank you so much.”

“Don't mention it. Oh, by the way, I wrote down your species as 'mungus'.”

“...You what now?”

Several days later, Ms.Larimar was waiting in the visiting room. On her side of the glass stood a guard explaining what the prisoner she had come to see had been up to.

“They tried to escape a couple times. 'Stopped when we put a camera in their cell though.”

“Escape?” the visitor repeated.

“I caught him in a completely different part of the building one night”, the guard explained. “After that the camera was installed. That's all I can tell you, m'am.”

Before Larimar could ask further questions about this, former Mira astronaut Morgan Rose arrived on the other side of the glass, accompanied by another guard behind him.

“Long time no see”, he said, sitting on his chair.

“Indeed”, she replied. “I can't give much details, but... I think the other directors and I owe you an apology.”

“Do you now...”

“We didn't want to believe your story back then. You being a manipulator and murderer seemed more likely than... what you said happened. But then it happened again.”

Morgan straightened up.

“Did it?” they asked. “Are the ship and crew...?”

“Everything's fine and under control now”, she explained. “Do not worry.”

“That's a relief.”

“We might be able to negotiate getting you out early. As an apology.”

“Really?” Morgan said, his voice full of hope and joy. “I'd do anything to get out. My wife's waiting.”

“I think asking something of you after what we did would be in bad taste. We'll just focus on getting you freed. What you do after that is up to you.”

“I want my job and my life back. And ask the others if they want to come back, too.”

“That's fair”, Larimar agreed. “It might take a while though.”

“I can wait. I've been waiting for a while. Biding my time...”

“Sorry about that. We will contact you when we make progress. I... I can't apologise enough, can I?”

“My parents always said the best apology is changed behaviour”, Morgan said. “We'll say you changing your attitude towards me is a good first step.”

Larimar couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief.

The days pretty much blended together when you weren't allowed to leave HQ, so Purple wasn't entirely sure how long they'd been living there, sleeping and working in Orange's lab. It had been a few months at the very least.

This morning, Blue had come to the lab to wake them up, holding a letter for them.

“Guess what?”, ze asked.

Purple sat on on their foldable bed and yawned loudly.

“Hum. Good news?” they guessed.

The other nodded and handed them the envelope.

“Go on”, ze encouraged them, “open it!”

Purple did as instructed. In the envelope was a brand new ID under the name Purple A. Mungus.

They started at it, tearing up a little.

“It... it's done now?” they said quietly as though they still had a hard time realising what they had in their hands was real. “It's mine? I have a name...”

“You ok?” Blue asked.

Purple nodded enthusiastically.

Until now, they had never realised how attached they had gotten to the concept of names and having their own. Maybe they had been there too long.

Blue gave them a pat on the back.

“I know this name was already mine before”, Purple said, “but seeing it written here... I get it. I get it now. Having a name rules.”

“Yeah, munguses don't do names do they?”

“To us there was no point in inventing those. But I think y'all have a weird influence on me.”

“It's a good one I hope.”

“Well... Hey, I've heard some former employee was returning to the company?”

“Yeah, Auntie mentioned this. She personally hired 'em back apparently. Anyway, I gotta go. See ya later!”

As ze left the room, Orange entered. Today's work could now begin.

Later that day, a pink employee entered the lab while the two biologists where working. Orange was so focused on her samples she didn't even realise it immediately. Purple, however, stared intently at the intruder. He stared right back.

“Oh, sorry, didn't see you there”, Clementine apologised. “Can I help you?”

“Sorry, I was looking for... someone else. I'll leave you alone. You're already in good company...”

“Back from jail, huh?” Purple said.

“It's a long story”, Pink replied with a wave of his hand. “Anyway I'll let you do your thing.”

He then left without any more word.

“...Okay then”, Orange said. “Where were we again?”

“Oh, look at the time, I have something to do elsewhere!” Purple quickly exclaimed before also leaving the room without letting their coworker ask them why.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not gonna lie, this fic went in a slightly different direction than originally planned

Green was doing a routine inspection of the reactor on the top floor of HQ when they heard the familiar sound of a vent opening.

“Hi Purple”, they said as they turned around to face the other.

Who was _not_ Purple.

Pink grabbed them with one hand, shoved them against the console, brandished a ceramic knife in his other hand, then-

Purple's spike-tongue stabbed the attacker's hand, making him drop the knife. They then pushed Pink to the floor and held them down.

“Don't. Ever. Come after my crew. Or I _will_ kill you.”

Purple's voice was barely above a whisper and yet Green could hear the absolute fury boiling right under the surface.

“Run!” they yelled to Green.

The engineer had never run this fast in their entire life. Or been this relieved to be in the decontamination corridor, protected by the doors.

That relief instantly went away the moment their eyes went to the vent right next to them. They kept hammering the button, hoping Purple could keep the other impostor pinned for long enough.

The door opened and Green bolted out of decontamination, past the lockers, and into coms, where they contacted security.

“Pink's a mungus!” they screamed into the microphone.

“Sorry, what?” said the voice on the other end.

“Rose tried to kill me in reactor! Top floor! Purple's fighting them! Hurry up and help Purple!”

“On it.”

The other person hanged up, leaving Green alone. There was no vent in this room, but also no door. Why wasn't there any door on this floor? They'd give everything to have a door right now.

“The fuck are you doing?” asked Pink.

He was so confused he wasn't even struggling against his fellow mungus' grasp.

“I thought I was clear enough”, they replied.

Pink rolled them both around so that he was now on top, got up, picked the knife back up in his uninjured hand and shouted :

“Fine! Fine! If you're gonna side with these creatures, I'm gonna treat you as one of them!”

Purple leapt back on their feet, but the impostor kicked them back down. They responded by sprouting multiple tendrils to tie Pink up and completely prevent him from moving.

That's when two security people barged into the room, Green hidden behind them.

“Purple turned into a monster!” Pink screamed, making a big show of struggling against their binds. “Help!”

“Don't listen to him!” Green warned the guards. “Purple's good! Pink tried to stab me!”

“They're lying and an impostor too!”

The two guards looked at each other, nodded, pulled out their electric shock guns and stunned both aliens.

Pink & Purple had been dragged into Medbay where Doctor Mars had been called.

The medic treated Rose's wound while the guards watched, ready to intervene if he tried anything fishy.

“Of course we already knew about Purple!” Green told the guards. “We have a deal with them. There was no need to stun them too.”

“Alright”, Red said, “let's test Pink just to make sure.”

“What's the test?” asked one of the guards.

“Just put 'em on the scanner.”

And they did. The machine tried to scan not-Morgan and bluescreened.

“Your machine's just faulty!” he protested. “That doesn't prove any-”

“We're not doing this whole scene again”, Red shut them down.

“Has any of you contacted the directors?” Purple, who was sitting on the floor with their back against a wall, asked suddenly.

“I sent a message”, the other guard replied.

“They're not gonna be happy about this”, Green stated.

“This is all your fault”, Pink told Purple. “No-one suspected me at all.”

“I'm also the reason why they decided to get you out of jail, you know?”

“...Oh. But still, because _you_ got attached to some aliens _my_ cover is blown too!”

“You could have just not tried to kill me, you know”, Olive pointed out. “You literally don't have to do any of this. Ask Purple.”

“Whatever. Just kill me and be done with this already.”

“What's with you two and the assumption you're going to be killed?” Red asked.

“That's what happens when you get discovered”, Pink shrugged.

“I dunno about anyone else but I didn't take care of your wound to kill you now.”

“Hey. That's fair I guess.”

“Captain Brown was never the impostor, was she?” a director asked.

“No. I killed White and convinced everyone the captain had done it. They never suspect me at all. Even now they're still absolutely convinced she did it. That's my proudest achievement.”

All the other directors were at the circular meeting room interrogating Pink, except Larimar. Had the news been too much for her?

Purple and a security guard were standing on either side of Pink (who was himself standing in the center of the circle) just in case.

“I think we'll have to tell them what really happened”, another director pointed out.

“I wish I could see their faces when they find out they've been duped.”

As “Rose” was saying that, Director Larimar entered the room and apologised for being late.

“I was... busy”, she added as she sat in her seat at the circular table.

“Wait”, one of her colleagues chimed in, “didn't Rose have a spouse? What did you do to them?”

“Nothing”, the impostor replied. “I needed a cover.”

“She's indeed alive”, Larimar added. “I checked.”

Pink froze like a wild animal caught in the headlights and realising it was already too late to run away.

“You... you didn't tell her, did you?” He asked, his voiced barely above a whisper.

“You were ok with the crewmates knowing”, Purple pointed out. “Why is she different? Your cover's already blown.”

“I don't have to live with the others!” Pink argued.

“We'll have to keep you here like Purple”, Larimar explained, “so this won't be a prob-”

“No! Pearl's so happy to see her husband outside again and-”

“Ooooh”, Purple interrupted, “who got attached to some alien now?”

“SHUT UP!”

“You've been blended too long.”

“I said shut! UP!!!”

“Could you two stop?” one director scolded.

“I've already sent her a message”, Larimar stated.

Pink covered their face with their hands.

“Why won't you just kill me already...” he muttered under his breath.

“I think Professor Moutarde would rather keep you alive”, Larimar replied.

“You should have left me in jail.”

“I know...”

_Two years earlier..._

The pink impostor could not believe the crew had bought their lie so easily. Them being absolutely convinced they'd already gotten rid of the threat should have been the perfect opportunity to strike them unaware. However, what this really meant was that if anything happened after that, Pink would have immediately become sus. They were the one who suggested ejecting the captain, so if it turned out it wasn't her...

He waited for the dust to settle. He waited too long. His perfect blending came back to bite him shortly after reaching the Others' planet. No-one there even believed there ever was an impostor at all and he was sent to jail for convincing everyone to throw Brown out.

It was funny how the directors accidentally got it right in a way.

The Skeld Crew sided with Pink and all quit, forcing the company to replace the entire team. They all visited the secret impostor after he was put behind bars. But most importantly, Morgan's wife Pearl went to see them during visiting hours.

The impostor had enough of their host's memory to play the part of the loving husband. The way this other species expressed love was kind of adorable, he had to admit. He played along. They didn't have much else to do.

“It's not fair that you get punished for what she did!” Pearl exclaimed from the other side of the glass.

She put her hand on the barrier. Pink put their own hand on their side, carefully aligning it with hers.

“So you believe me then?” he asked, his voice hopeful.

“I know you”, she replied. “You wouldn't hurt a fly. I have to put spiders outside for you 'cause you can't bear seeing any creature suffer. And I'm supposed to believe you would- That's just not very credible to me.”

Pearl was right, of course : the _real_ Morgan would have never intentionally hurt anyone.

“The directors just won't believe the impostor thing. But they weren't there... This wasn't our captain anymore.”

“Can I be blunt for a second?” she asked, and only went ahead after the other nodded. “This impostor business sounds like a very weird way to cope with the fact that... with what your captain did. And what you had to do to her.”

“I... I understand why you think that. I'll mull it over while I'm locked up. Then I'll get out of here”, the impostor promised.

“I'll wait for you, dear.”

“Thank you, sweetie. Thank you.”

“I guess the baby plans are on hold for now.”

“...Yeah”, said Pink, searching their host's memories on how these creatures made more of themselves.

Huh. What a strange and overly-complicated process. How were there so many of them?

“Dear?” Pearl called to him, bringing him back to the present.

“Yes honey?”

“I'm going to study law. If by the time I become a lawyer you're still not out, I _will_ get you out.”

“What would I do without you?”

Escaping your cell is not that hard when you are a shapeshifter. Remaining undetected after that was the tricky part.

Venting out of sight and avoiding places you knew others were on the Skeld was one thing. Attempting to do so in a much bigger space with way more potential witnesses was another. They didn't know where any of the vents led to, for starters. It would take longer to get used to their layout than to the Skeld's. After a while of blindly crawling through the vents, the impostor decided to get out of them just to see where he was.

It was an office of some kind. Maybe the director's? He took time to look around the room. No-one was there at this hour of the night, and the door was locked. Well, at least now they knew one place this vent went to.

They heard footsteps right outside the door. The door was locked though, so this shouldn't be a problem, right?

The vent's opening was near the ceiling, so Pink grabbed the office chair, placed it under the vent and stood in the chair right as the sound of a key turning made itself heard. _Oh shit._

Before he could actually go through the vent, the door opened, revealing a guard who drew their shock gun and stunned the would-be escapee.

“You what?!” Pearl shouted in the visiting room the next day.

“I had to try!” Pink defended himself.

“You're just gonna make your sentence worse everytime you try to escape! It's not worth it!”

“You don't think I could pull it off?”

“Sweetie, even if you pulled it off, what would you do after that? Come back home? That's the first place they'd look. You didn't think that through and that's... unlike you. Are you alright?”

“Y-yes! Still the same old Morgan!” he laughed nervously. “I just...”

“Don't make it harder”, Pearl pleaded. “Please. I want to be with you again without having to constantly worry about you getting put back in here at any moment.”

The two did the thing with their hands on each side of the glass, just like the previous times.

“Honey...” Pink started.

They hesitated for a long moment. They couldn't tell her the truth with the guard watching behind them, but...

“Maybe... maybe you shouldn't wait for me”, he finally said. “The one you married won't be the one who will step out jail.”

“That's ok, dear. People change. I won't be exactly the same either.”

“You deserve better than this.”

“We both deserve better than this”, Pearl pointed out. “That's why I spend so much time studying nowadays.”

The impostor couldn't think of a way to convince her to get out of this whole situation without revealing himself or breaking her heart. He stopped talking and slowly slid his hand down the glass panel, away from her palm.

Wait, why was he even trying? Didn't he need her help?

“You're committed to never giving up on me”, he said. “I'm... impressed.”

“I'm nothing if not determined.”

_Present day..._

Pink had been locked in a different lab for the night. One that had a glass cage big enough for a couple people to fit in lying down. The impostor himself had been given a mattress and pillow that he'd placed in a corner and sat on.

Purple was sitting on the floor outside the cage, looking at him in silence.

“So...” Pink broke the silence. “Why?”

“Hum?”

“You know. Why did you side with them instead?”

“They offered me a deal”, Purple explained. “A non-aggression pact. I accepted. And... I did think about betraying them after but... I just didn't. I respected the terms of the deal.”

“Why?” Pink asked.

“I wasn't sure myself at first”, their fellow mungus admitted. “But... When being sent, it didn't matter what happened to me as long as the job was done. But you know what? Actually, I _do_ care about what happens to me, and I don't want to die. They helped me realise that so... here we are.”

“I see... I think?”

“'Guess we've both been with those hosts too long”, Purple stated.

“Maybe”, Pink conceded. “But consuming them here and now would be a bad idea I think.”

“...Is it weird that the idea of doing that just never crossed my mind at all?”

Pink shrugged in response.

Then their phone vibrated again. They sighed but did not do anything else. When asked about it, he explained :

“Pearl has tried to call me so many times... I don't know what to tell her. She loves her husband so much...”

“Not saying anything might make it all worse though?” Purple said. “You know how they are. They hate uncertainty.”

Pink finally took his phone out of his pocket, then stared at it in silence for a long moment. After the other impostor asked whether he was going to do something, he typed and sent a text.

“So what did you write?” Purple asked.

“'I'm sorry'”, Pink replied.

“Well that's a start I guess?”

Early the next morning, a security guard woke both impostors up.

“Hey are you-” they started, stopping when they noticed the cage. “...Why are you in there?”

“Long story”, Pink replied, sitting up on the mattress and stretching. “Can you get me out?”

“Don't”, Purple warned, getting up from the floor. “He's here for a reason and you don't want to know the reason.”

“O...k...?” the guard hesitated. “I, hum... Someone's at the door asking for Morgan Rose? She's... very insistent. To put it mildly. She's blocking the main entrance and refuses to move until we let her see her husband. That's you in that glass thing, right?”

“So do you want to...?” Purple asked Pink.

“I don't think I could stop her if I tried”, he replied.

“I'll just... bring her here I guess”, the guard said while slowly backing away from the room and leaving.

“...Shit”, Pink whispered. “What... what do I do?”

“Didn't we already discuss that?”

“This will destroy her...”

“...I don't know how to reply to that”, Purple admitted.

Their host was strangely solitary for their species, so they never had to confront any partners or family members like this.

They didn't know how to go about Pink's problems, but it sure was going to be interesting.

Soon enough, the door opened again ; Pearl rushed right past the guard & Purple to plant herself in front of Pink's cage.

“Honey, could you explain what's going on? I received a message saying you've been replaced and then you just disappear?!”

As she was talking, the security guard slowly backed away and disappeared from view. The door remained just slightly ajar though.

“They locked me up for... safety reasons”, the pink impostor explained, sitting on the mattress and looking down.

“Who's safety?”

“They tried to kill Green”, Purple blurted out. “I had to stop them!”

“Morgan would never do that”, Pearl stated, stomping her foot. “How dare you make accusations like th-”

“I'm not Morgan”, Pink said, his voice barely above a whisper.

“...What.”

“You were right about Brown still being human. I'm the one who isn't. I am the impostor. They only just figured it out because I tried to kill someone else.”

“You... I would have noticed if my husband had been replaced like that... right?”

“Blending in perfectly is what we do, m'am”, Purple chimed in.

“You're selling her short”, Pink told them. “I bet had I been actually living with her all day instead of being in jail she would have noticed something sus at some point. She's not stupid.”

“...What does that says about your crewmates who did live with you all day and never found out?” his fellow impostor asked.

“Is this some kind of elaborate prank or...” Pearl trailed off. “No, you wouldn't, would you? I mean, _he_ wouldn't- What have you done to my husband?”

Purple picked up a chair from somewhere and placed it behind her just in case.

“You don't want the details”, Pink said somberly.

She got closer to the cage and put both her hands on the glass.

“Morgan?” she called. “Honey, are you still in there?”

“You can't have him back, I'm-” Pink started.

“I'm not talking to you”, Pearl interrupted.

“There's no-one else in there to talk to.”

“And how would I know that? How can I be sure any of what you say is true? After... after everything...”

She sat on the chair.

“The original Morgan's been... I think 'assimilated' is the closest word you have”, Purple explained. “There's no coming back from that.”

“...How many people here are aliens?” she asked.

“Just us two”, both munguses replied.

“So it's only happened twice?”

“We've used other species as hosts”, Purple said. “We know how it works.”

“Can you separate from the host?”

“Not really”, Pink replied.

“No”, the other alien confirmed. “Not without killing the body anyway.”

Pearl covered her face with her hands and took a deep breath. After a moment of silence, she got up and ran out.

As Purple walked to the door, Pink told them to stop.

“She needs some privacy right now”, he told them.


End file.
